If Issac Newton is indebted to the apple tree, then I am to the rabbit.
This relationship was revealed when I was asked to erect a sculpture
at Invernochty near Doune in Strathdon, to help the public notice the
unnoticed. The unnoticed site that had to be noticed was an 800 hundred
year old Norman motte and bailey - a fortified mound.

It was truly an uphill project because Scottish Heritage insisted that
no holes be dug downhill into their heritable ground to support the
structure. Faced with this crisis I observed that the rabbits had unconcernedly
overcome this restriction, for their holes were being burrowed sideways.
In a flash my problem was solved, and instead of digging vertically
downwards, I dug horizontally sideways. It was indeed a maieutic moment,
for I had discovered 'Horizontal Gravity'!

The phrase 'noticing the unnoticed' precisely reflects Newton's keen
observation of how a falling apple demonstrated the first idea of 'gravity',
which now has to be termed 'Vertical Gravity'. This is to differentiate
it from the 'Horizontal Gravity' as demonstrated by the rabbits. Note
that both gravities had been there all the time and accepted as normal
by apples and rabbits, but not so by the less perceptive humans.

Theories exist as to the relative influences of the vertical and the
horizontal. Mr Harry Lauder in expressing that "it's nice to get
up in the morning, but it's nicer to lie in bed" left no-one in
doubt as to his preference for being horizontal...

It was at Callanish that I noticed that early humans had a tendency
to quarry horizontal stones out of a cliff, so as they could stand them
up later. They dragged them for a mile or so across rugged country before
regimenting them vertically to become ancient monuments for some mystery
as yet undetermined. If I had been a stone I would have objected to
this and would rather have been used for some more obvious purpose,
like being part of a Hebridean black house, and getting back to some
horizontal sleep in the strata of its dark smoky wall - but all that
stand-up solstice stuff, no thanks.

Vertical aspirations are demonstrated by big towers such as the 'Eiffel',
'Post Office', 'Toronto', 'World Trade Center' - and so on, not forgetting
'spires', 'minarets', 'totem poles' and the likes. Horizontals seem
to represent a more plodding sort of endeavour like looking for 'light
at the end of tunnels', or 'crossing bridges when we come to them'.
But if this route is not as starry as the vertical, there seems greater
prospects of arriving at a worthwhile earthbound destination, as opposed
to the confident ascent of some doubtful verticality. The American artist
HC Westermann once made a 'Suicide Tower' - a reminder to high-flyers
that upward vertical confidence can lead to a downward vertical fall.

I have an ongoing love affair with the big Finnieston Crane in Glasgow.
It is called a hammer-head crane because it is like a structural steel
hammer shaft rising from the ground, with its head becoming flat like
the letter 'T', and so the vertical changes to the horizontal. It is
built like the Eiffel Tower and likewise the Forth Railway Bridge, which
is really a tower lying on its side. Its arches cry out to contain airborne
restaurants and observation platforms like its Parisian pal, anything
to ensure that it is always there and loved.

These architectural 'found objects' do not over-emphasise vertical
aspects. Neither does a tower which rises vertically, then changes its
mind, bends, and happily returns to earth again.

This self-cancellation tower confuses gravity and is called an 'Arch'.

Towers were once built for dropping hot lead from their highest point
with the drips landing in a bucketful of water to cool, the droplets
to become lead-shot for shotgun cartridges. Shot-guns are used for shooting
down high-flying birds which, when they are full of lead, fall to the
ground and thus demonstrate the effects of Newton's 'Vertical Gravity'.
When the experiment is repeated by pointing the same guns at rabbits,
the perceptive bunnies elude the sporting fusillade by running straight
into, not down into, their burrows. Their prolific survival is
due to 'Horizontal Gravity' and if proof is required, try to count the
rabbits on the Mound of Invernochty...